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here is Obama, (transcript below) bringing up chain-of-fools CPI in his Meet The Press event, noting he brought it up to goopers before, but not saying he is going to offer it again.
shiny bauble, dangled before the goopers to see what they will offer in trade. higher estate taxes?
Is it possible that OB and the Democrats will walk away from chain cpi?
how do you call yourself a human being, let alone a Democrat, but go ahead and cut estate taxes, leave preferences for income from stocks and bonds, but cut Social Security?
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:
What I’ve said is I am prepared to do everything I can to make sure that
Medicare and Social Security are there, not just for this generation
but for future generations.
DAVID GREGORY:
You’ve got to talk tough to seniors–
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:
But–
DAVID GREGORY:
–don’t you about this? And say, something’s got to give?
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:
–but I already have, David, as you know, one of the proposals we made
was something called Chain CPI, which sounds real technical but
basically makes an adjustment in terms of how inflation is calculated on
Social Security. Highly unpopular among Democrats. Not something
supported by AARP. But in pursuit of strengthening Social Security for
the long-term I’m willing to make those decisions.
What I’m not willing to do is to have the entire burden of deficit
reduction rest on the shoulders of seniors, making students pay higher
student loan rates, ruining our capacity to invest in things like basic
research that help our economy grow. Those are the things that I’m not
willing to do. And so–
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HuffPo, quite deceptively, indicated that chained-cpi was a GOP proposal that they rescinded today, thus putting the blame on them rather than Saint Barack.
Thanks. Rec’d.
And, here is the link to that HuffPo article.
Since Social Security does not contribute one cent to the federal deficit, the chained CPI reduces SS payouts 112 billion dollars over ten years, w/o affecting their dreaded deficit.
What will add to their dreaded deficit is approving changes to the AMT, allowing billions of dollars of potential revenue (and hence deficit reduction) to escape taxation and to be deposited in the pockets of Americans most affluent wealthy people.
But instead of focusing on their ongoing theft of revenue, the pols would rather terrorize old, orphaned, and disabled people, Vets and government employees too.
If Obama is truly interested in fairly taxing the wealthy, he would scrap the FICA cap like he proposed to do as “candidate” Obama. If everyone pays their fair share, Social Security could be “strengthened” for the foreseeable future, like 100 years and beyond.
Cutting benefits, via a chained cpi, does not do anything but weaken Social Security. Social Security is an already much lower benefit compared to other countries’ much more generous retirement social insurance benefits.
Let the record show that this attempted act terror against the American people was proposed by the Democrats led by Barack Obama and rejected by the GOP. How shameful! But, not one bit surprising, given Obama’s shameful record.
By ALAN FRAM AND ANDREW TAYLOR, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS:
So was it a Obama proposal as he asserts (see diary) or was it a GOP demand as AP asserts above and as asserted by HuffPo earlier?
Looking around for stats on actual 2010 Social Security benefits I found this document/pdf.
57% of Social Security recipients are women. They have some of the lowest benefits as a group, and live the longest as a group, and are more likely to live in poverty in old age, as a group. Single individuals also are more likely to live in poverty in old age and Hispanics and Blacks.
Based upon Social Security alone, even living on the maximum benefit of about 2500 a month, all of the beneficiaries clump together between zero and the second quintile’s limit for income received from Social Security.
That politicians are shamelessly looking at these folks for money to give to make up for giving tax breaks to people who are getting ten times or more of what Social Security recipients get, is well,…..terribly shameful.
here something from the socialist POV on Obama and the fiscal cliff
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2012/12/31/pers-d31.html